Polygamy

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, who was arrested last week after two years on the run, made a court appearance by closed-circuit TV from the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane and told a judge in St. George he understood the charges against him. Jeffs, 50, is accused of being an accomplice to rape in arranging marriages between underage girls and older men.

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was flown from Las Vegas to Hurricane, where he will be housed in the Purgatory Correctional Facility while he faces felony sex charges involving the arranged marriage of an underage girl to an older man. An initial court appearance was scheduled today before 5th District Judge James L. Shumate. Jeffs, 50, was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list when he was arrested last month during a traffic stop near Las Vegas.

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs will be prosecuted first in Utah, then in Arizona, on charges that he arranged marriages of underage girls to older men, authorities said in Salt Lake City. Utah prosecutors agreed to try Jeffs first because they believed they had a stronger case and more serious charges, including two counts of rape by accomplice, which accuse Jeffs of forcing a girl to marry an older man and submit to him sexually.

Calling their lives blessed, more than a dozen young women and girls from polygamous families in Utah spoke at a rally Saturday, calling for a change in state laws and the right to the religion and lifestyle they choose. "Because of our beliefs, many of our people have been incarcerated and had their basic human rights stripped of them -- namely, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," said a 19-year-old identified only as Tyler.

A nephew of fugitive polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs has been jailed on contempt charges in Arizona -- the sixth person connected to Jeffs to refuse to answer questions before a federal grand jury. Officials at the Central Arizona Detention Facility in Florence said Benjamin Jeffs Nielsen, 25, was booked July 14. Jeffs has been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list since May. Subpoenas were first served in January on some Jeffs family members.

The younger brother of a polygamist-sect leader was sentenced Friday to three years' probation for hampering the FBI search for his fugitive sibling. Seth Steed Jeffs of Hildale, Utah, was fined $2,500 in addition to the probation. He had pleaded guilty to a federal charge of concealing a fugitive and faced a possible six-month prison sentence. Prosecutor Phil Brimmer asked for a three-month prison term, saying it would serve as a better deterrent. U.S. District Judge Robert E.

Arizona's attorney general believes fugitive polygamist leader Warren Jeffs recently returned to perform more marriages involving underage girls in Colorado City, Ariz., his church's community along the Utah-Arizona state line. Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard told a Salt Lake City newspaper that he plans to meet with FBI officials Monday about the case.

Re "The Enclave," two-part series, May 12 and 13 It is absolutely beyond belief that the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been able to flout the law with seeming impunity from serious prosecution. The Latter-day Saints church based in Salt Lake City bears a substantial burden as it relates to ridding this area of the misdeeds of these FLDS elders who, after all, practice the mainstream Mormon religion as it was practiced by the larger church until the 1890s.

The FBI placed polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs on its 10 most-wanted list, hoping the additional exposure and reward money lead to an arrest in the long-running investigation. Jeffs, 50, is the leader of the pro-polygamy Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in the state-line towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. He is wanted in Arizona on criminal charges of sexual conduct with a minor and has been charged in Utah with rape as an accomplice.

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